A tutor in geography to two French kings (Louis XIII and Louis XIV), Nicolas Sanson became géographe ordinaire du roi in 1630. Thereafter, most of his maps bore that honorable appellation. The Sanson family—le père’s map business was continued by two of his sons and a grandson into the eighteenth century—became synonymous with the golden age of French cartography.

First postal road map—also the first important map issued by Sanson. The map shows all of the routes used by the royal posts of the time, identifying the stops along the way; it was reprinted many times during the seventeenth century. Curiously, the cartouche for the dedication has been left blank. The French postal system dates back to 1477, when King Louis XI set up a Royal Postal Service that employed mounted couriers. The timing of this map is relevant, for private mail delivery had just been legalized several years earlier (1627), so both services were operating over the same major routes. In 1672, France made postal service a government-only function.

John Senex, 1678–1740. “A New Map of France: Shewing the Roads & Post Stages Thro-out That Kingdom, as Also the Errors of Sanson’s Map Compard with ye Survey Made by Order of ye Late French King” ([London: J. Senex], 1719). Copperplate map, with added color, 50 × 56 cm. [Historic Maps Collection].

English cartographer Senex compares his postal map to Sanson’s [see previous entry], over which he has superimposed a “corrected” version. The outline of Sanson’s map can be seen along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. “[Y]e Survey Made by Order of ye Late French King” was a plan, approved by King Louis XIV (1638–1715) in 1679, for a much more accurate map of France based on the latest scientific techniques. This was begun by Jean Picard (1620–1682) and continued by Giovanni Dominico Cassini (1625–1712); preliminary work, based on triangulation, revised the outlines of the country and appeared in the 1693 map “Carte de France corrigée par ordre du roy sur les observations de Mss. de l’Academie des Sciences.” That is the source that Senex used for this “new” postal map. The postal routes have greatly expanded in the interim years—see Normandy, for example.